Dr. Eric Werner

Many defined systems biology as building mathematical, computational
models based on biological data to predict and retrodict future and past
data. The speakers were divided roughly into biologists (data gatherers),
model builders, theory builders and tool providers. Of course, many did
several of these activities simultaneously. The model builders made up
the overwhelming majority of speakers and posters. In addition there appears
to be a split in the approach to building models. The level of ontology
and abstraction ranging from low level differential equation modeling,
to automata, all the way to Boolean logic. Another dimension is what to
model: chemical pathways, genomic regulatory networks, cell signaling
, whole cells, cell pattern formation by way of gradients.